Masala Dosa

So Last weekend was Miles’ first weekend back from his travels around South Korea so, my brother, Miles and I decided to go to a music festival… Natch! I had never been to a music festival before (well one like this) so I spent ages researching what to wear, what to bring, will they cater for coeliacs…

A few hours passed and a few drinks and boogies later it was time to grab some grub… this was where all that research really paid off, the festival boasted a beautiful selection of different foods from risotto to Thai food. We settled for a little stall selling Indian street food called Lalita’s. Not only do they have a 100% vegan menu, but everything on their menu except vegetable samosas is also gluten free! They even had GF onion bhaji!

We all went for the Masala Dosa which is a Indian pancake (Dosa) with a spiced potato filling (Masala), they also served it with a coconut chutney and another hot sauce which I cant remember the name of, and of course we had to try one of the bhajis!

We all absolutely loved the food, and left the stall with a lovely warm feeling in our mouths and bellies! Which gave me an idea… I wanted to make Masala Dosa so that I could share the recipe with you. Now, traditionally the Dosa batter is prepared by soaking rice and urad dal (a kind of bean/lentil) but I am really impatient, and I wanted dosa and I wanted it now so…I cheated and made it using a different recipe I found online with a few simple tweaks. (forgive me if I have any readers from India, please!)

It didn’t taste bad at all! In fact it was very yummy, however I have to stress that you can’t get better than the real deal and I promise one day I will make, and share the real recipe with you all.

You will need:

(For the potato filling)

1 large sweet potato

1 large baking potato

Olive oil

1 onion (diced)

1 fresh red chilli (chopped finely)

1cm piece of ginger (grated)

1 teaspoon of mustard seeds

1/2 teaspoon turmeric

Salt and pepps

1 tablespoon lemon juice

A handful of coriander (chopped)

(For the Dosa batter)

1/2 cup gram flour

1/2 cup plain gluten free flour

1 teaspoon mustard seeds

1 teaspoon baking powder

About 200ml water

Olive oil

Method:

1. Bake the potatoes in your oven for about an hour or until the insides are nice and soft. Once done, remove from the oven and leave to cool a little before taking the skins off and setting the flesh to the side.

2. In a frying pan, add a splash of oil, the chilli, ginger, mustard seeds, onion, turmeric, salt and pepps and heat until the mustard seeds start to pop. Tip this mixture in with the potato flesh and and give it a little mash and a stir to incorporate it all together. I mashed it so that there where a few chunks of potato still. Add the coriander and set to the side.

3. Now to make the dosa! Mix together the flours, baking powder and mustard seeds and slowly add the water until you have a runny batter, add a little oil to a frying pan and allow to heat up.

4. Add a ladle of the dosa batter to the hot frying pan and swirl around so that the dosa is nice and thin. Wait for the batter to brown and go crispy on the bottom and add a tablespoon of the potato filling you made earlier to the Center of the dosa. Carefully take one of the edges of the dosa and wrap it up so it looks like a fajita.

5. Remove the masala dosa from the frying pan and serve, enjoy with mango chutney, yum!!